Essex poetry needs to find a distinctive flavour. Poetry from other places relies on isolation, ethnic symbolism, stock caricatures. Essex poetry must strive for vision, feeding on the immense skies, ancient mystic roots, the melting pot of cultures, the calmness of the waving corn, the energy of futurism. Too much poetry is inward-looking, self-absorbed and trivial. (We can all be guilty of those things.) Alternatively, it can be superficial, fashionable and trivial.
Poetry, time travel, Surrealism - are just a few of the things that exercise my mind. I try to write in several different genre. Writing in one style is thought to create a poetic "voice", but "voice" always appears whatever you write. Be different - be adventurous.
This is my back catalogue. 2010 poems under wraps.
This is a journey inside my head. I live my life in a dream world, which is more real than the world in which I live with family, friends, work colleagues and other people. This dream world started when I was three years old - at least, that is when I remember events which can be tied to a date in time. The dream goes on all the time, always in the background of my everyday life, often taking over my waking life, and it is the entire substance of my dreaming sleep. This is the part of me that creates poems and gives life to the characters in my book.
That is one half of my mind. The other half is rational, argumentative, does not blindly follow accepted explanations without testing. This is the part I use when I am with other people, at home and at work.